The present invention relates to data processing, and more specifically, to multi-source data assimilation.
In environmental monitoring, multiple sources with varying coverages, accuracies, resolutions, metrics, etc. are monitored. For example, in air quality monitoring, air quality data may be obtained from ground monitoring stations, ground sensors, laser radars, satellites, etc. The ground station data usually has a high accuracy but a small coverage due to the cost, while the ground sensor data has a lower accuracy but a larger coverage than the ground station data. The laser radar data has a three-dimensional (3D) coverage but usually a poor resolution. The satellite aerosol optical depth (AOD) data may have a large coverage but a low accuracy. Therefore, there exists a need for combining or assimilating data sets from different data sources into one data set to better reflect environmental conditions.